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[This was first posted July 2, 2012,
We are often asked by our former Christian colleagues, “so how are you now ‘saved’ if you no longer believe in Jesus Christ as God/Savior/Messiah?” We don’t attempt to explain the long journey we’ve taken since we left Christianity ; we simply refer them to this website OR to the book recommended here as MUST READ.
Here’s the original introduction to this post:
Sinai 6000 is a RESOURCE CENTER for seekers after the ONE TRUE GOD. It is not our intention to “evangelize” or “convert” others to any religion or system of belief. What we do provide is information, as much as we have accumulated in our resources, our real and virtual library, including the information we have compiled in our collective minds and memory which we discuss every Shabbat. We know for a fact and realize that the resources we have had access to are not so readily available or even accessible to other seekers, that is why we bother to type out articles and books to make it easy for website visitors to read as much as their minds can tolerate and process each visit. We provide as many sources as we are able to, including uncertain and differing opinions when we ourselves have not determined our own stand or position on any specific controversy.
So here again, is one excellent source, already figured out and presented in a well-written organized chapter, from one of our favorite resource persons—James Tabor, Restoring Abrahamic Faith. This is from Chapter Five of that book, titled “Turning To God.” How could we possibly improve on what Tabor has already written? We cannot do better than this in explaining how people were saved before Christianity made salvation exclusive so we’re resorting to quoting from James Tabor extensively.
Some readers or our former Christian colleagues have the wrong impression that we are “Jesus-bashing” . . . not at all; it is not Jesus of Nazareth, the historical Jesus we are “bashing”; rather we are re-examining the whole doctrinal theological system about him that emerged and has been perpetuated for two millennia; we are endeavoring to re-educate Truth-seekers, specially those who do not have access to current biblical scholarship, or to published books that understandably do not make it into Christian bookstores. Few venture outside of those boundaries of their beliefs so this website is a blessing from YHVH to us in this day and age of information technology when you can check out and learn as much as you want with the simple finger click of a computer key.
Condensed and edited excerpts from this MUST HAVE book.—Admin1.]
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YHVH is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in faithfulness.
(Psalm 145:18)
How does one appropriate ABRAHAMIC FAITH . . . how does one obtain a right relationship with YHVH, the Creator God and participate in His WAY and PLAN?
The answer is profoundly simple, so much so that it can be stated in a single verse spoken directly by YHVH Himself:
Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth;
for I am God, and there is no other!
(Isaiah 45:22)
The way to come into Covenant relationship with YHVH has never changed: one must directly call upon Him, in the most heartfelt and utterly sincere manner. There is no other way.
YHVH Himself says, “TURN TO ME.”
There is only ONE Rock, Redeemer, Savior, and King —YHVH the Eternal God of Hosts (Isaiah 44:6-8).
Isaiah 43-45 makes this point repeatedly, in the most unequivocal language possible. This “turning” includes the whole range of concepts related to “Knowing God. It involves a deep fear and love of YHVH, which comes from a sense of Who He is, His unsearchable greatness and goodness. The very notion of turning implies a profound experience of repentance from sins, and seeking God with all one’s heart. We have all sinned and turned to our own ways, we have all failed to meet even our own best standards, much less God’s WAY.
Note the following texts:
Thus says YHVH, “Return to Me,” says YHVH of Hosts, “and I will return to you,” says YHVH of Hosts . . . “Turn now from your evil ways and from your evil deeds” (Zecharaiah 1:3-4).
“Seek YHVH while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; Let him return to YHVH, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My WAYs,” says YHVH. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My WAYs higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:6-9).
When anyone, Jew or Gentile, turns directly to YHVH in this way, God promises to hear, forgive and enter into an intimate partnership with such a one:
YHVH is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in faithfulness (Psalm 145:18).
This way of salvation has never changed. It transcends all the so-called “dispensations” of all the ages. It is the way of grace through faith. It was the same for Enoch, Noah, Job, and Abraham, as well as Moses and all the Prophets.
Christians, particularly, should take note that this way of salvation was affirmed by the historical Jesus the Nazarene. He taught that sinners are to turn directly to God to receive forgiveness. For example, he relates the story of the two men who go up to the Temple to pray, one self-righteous, and the other a “sinner” The sinner turns directly to God in repentance and goes away justified (Luke 18:13). The well-known story of the “prodigal son” makes the same point. In dozens of saying, Jesus unambiguously affirms this point: God hears sinners who turn to him in heartfelt repentance. He is simply echoing the teachings of the Prophets.
[Footnote: Since other statements attributed to Jesus contradict this concept, either his later followers added these as they began to exalt him to divine mediator status, or he himself spoke in a nonsensical way.]
Many have been taught that the “Old Testament” offered forgiveness of sins based on the blood of animal sacrifices. This is a misunderstanding of the Scriptures. All sin is ultimately against God.
When David commits adultery with Bathsheva, and even has her husband murdered, he turns to God for forgiveness. He prays,
Against You and You only have I sinned, and done what is evil in Your sight (Psalm 51:4; cf. 2 Samuel 12:13).
This is consistent throughout the Scriptures ((see Genesis 20:6; 39:9; Numbers 5:5-7).
God promises forgiveness based on His own compassion and goodness:
I, even I, am the One Who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake (Isaiah 43:25).
For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love (chesed) toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Just as a father has compassion on his children, so YHVH has compassion on those who fear Him (Psalm 103:11-13).
In steadfast love and faithfulness is atonement (lit. “covering”) provided for iniquity; and by the fear of YHVH one departs from evil (Proverbs 16;6).
Psalm 103:8 mentions the precise “character description” which YHVH revealed to Moses in Exodus 34:
YHVH is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (vs. 8).
This forgiveness is direct and unmediated, based on the tender mercies and loyal love of YHVH. Forgiveness of sins is not some cosmic “balancing of the books,” some legal transaction of justice, for which a payment in blood is required.
YHVH forgives as a father
forgives His own children,
out of love and concern for them.
The only way of salvation is by grace through faith, based on a personal encounter with God. As David put it:
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man to who YHVH does not impute iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit (Psalm 32:1-2).
The animal sacrifices were connected with the Holiness of YHVH’s Presence in the Tabernacle. But these offerings were never a substitute for repentance and restitution or reconciliation (Numbers 5:5-7). Notice the oft-overlooked text in Jeremiah:
Thus says YHVH of Hosts, the God of Israel, Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat flesh. For I did not speak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this is what I commanded them, saying, Obey My voice, and I will be your God and you will be My people (Jeremiah 7:21-23).
This is an extraordinary insight regarding God’s true intent for Israel. Even at the giving of the TORAH at Sinai He did not really want, or require, animal sacrifices (see Amos 5:21-25). He wanted their inner devotion, which is the basis for the covenantal relationship.
The whole system of sacrifices was an accommodation to their weaknesses, and their lack of reverence for the holiness of YHVH (see Ezekiel 20:24-26). What does YHVH truly want?
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart O God, You will not despise (Psalm 51:17).
The Prophets constantly repeat this consistent theme:
With what shall I come before YHVH, and bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offering, with calves a year old? Will YHVH be pleased with thousands of rams, then thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good, and what does YHVH require of you but to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:6-8).
It has always been the same, from age to age. YHVH the Creator, whose Hand has made all things, is greater than any Temple or system of worship.
“I shall desire loyal love (chesed), not sacrifice” says YHVH (Hosea 6:6).
[Footnote: This idea is found in many passages in the Hebrew bible, but particularly in the Psalms: see Psalms 27:6, 50:7-15; 69:29-31; 107:22; 141:2. It is also worth noting that this verse is quoted by Jesus more often than any other single text of the Hebrew Bible (Matthew 9:13, 12;7).
He responds directly to those who cry out to Him:
Thus says YHVH, Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool. Where is a house you could build for Me? . . . But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite in spirit an who trembles at My Word (Isaiah 66:1-2).
Burnt offering and sin offering You have not required . . . Behold I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me; I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your TORAH is within my heart (Psalm 40:6-8).
In point of fact, the animal sacrifices in the Temple were not for the forgiveness of sin in the first place. The majority of them had to do with ritual defilement, offerings of thanksgiving, and fellowship meals. Even those connected with “sin” were not some magical means of automatic forgiveness through blood.
The one way of forgiveness has always been the same: repentance, confession, and restitution (see Numbers 5:5-7). Without repentance toward God there was no forgiveness.
Ezekiel 18 sets forth the whole system of God’s justice and His mercy in the clearest possible way:
“The soul who sins shall die . . . . but if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, and keeps all My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of his transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; because of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live. Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says YHVH God, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live?” (Ezekiel 18:4, 21-23).
The blood of “covering” (atonement) was to reinforce upon the people the Holiness of God and the life and death issues involved in sin, but the “broken and contrite heart” is the only real “sacrifice” required.
Abraham “trusted in God, and it was counted to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6).
“The righteous (the zadiq) shall live by faith” (Habakkuk 2:4).
Any and all who fear, love, and obey Him, living that life of faith, are associated with Abraham in the promises of Genesis 12:1-3, and are fully a part of this broader “household of faith” (Genesis 18:19).
To be continued in The WAY of SALVATION in TNK – 2: “The Fundamental Flaw of Christianity”